In order to gain more insight on competitors in the field of entertainment and education for children in an online space, I chose TVO kids as a competitor to compare and analyse what is done well versus elements that I could improve upon in my own project, Kazoo.
Site: TVOKids.com
Link: https://www.tvokids.com
This site is for children ages 4-12, primarily supporting a TV channel called TVO kids to create content that aligns with the Ontario school curriculum and foster learning outside of the classroom. It contains games and videos of shows that usually air on TV and sorts them by subject or character.
On the site, there is a lot of usage of colour, especially bright and playful colours with a bit of a muted tone to them. This gives a very comfortable yet playful feeling upon going through the landing page to the menu page. The typography used is Helvetica, which is a thicker rounded looking sans serif. There is also a lot of usage of rounded corners, circles, and image based content. Instead of a menu with the names of the shows, the site uses this side scrolling carousel with images of characters from different shows for the user to click on and sort content based on the show and character they like.
The main page has a similar layout, but has labelling and seems to focus on more educational content, possibly to catch the user’s attention first so they are more inclined to click on the bigger boxes to try something new rather than sort by the character topic they like. The website also allows a child user to only use a mouse to navigate to games as children may not know how to search or use a keyboard entirely.
The font and text is also very minimal in the tab for videos, games, apps, and the age selection as it seems to mostly afford for parent’s knowledge of navigation bars from other websites as the carousel is very unfamiliar as an adult myself as another form of navigation.
In the game player and media player areas, there is a bit of awkward formatting, especially with games. The videos can be put on full screen easily with familiar full screen buttons. There is also a top navigation bar to go back to where the user was last or to the game menu with white icons on black. This is the same for the game player, however the game is displayed in a square ratio which gives an outdated feel to the games since this ratio was primarily used in around the 2005-2012 time period to suit the older square screens compared to the regular 16:9/ full screen ratio that games tend to have now.
The website itself is optimized for mobile device usage however there are also apps of some of the games in a tab called “games” on the menu page however the search function for this looks a bit outdated and more parent oriented than child oriented as it has more of a database appearance.
In, What is interaction Design? in Beyond Interaction Design, Jenny Preece explains usability goals as a focus in optimizing the interactions people have with interactive products in everyday life and onwards from picking up the design. User experience goals are focused on the pleasure factor and emotions that the user may associate and experience while using the product. Usability principles compose of preset design systems and guidelines when it comes to the design of the site such as design that prompts efficient, error free and user friendly. If a product can afford both users that may make mistakes and advanced users as well as maintain consistency, this is considered as within the principles of usability.
Each are listed as follows: